


in my lover's eyes (flowers grow)

by meritmut



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/F, Female Kylo Ren, Jedi Rey, Light Angst, Romance, Secret Relationship, Senator Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 14:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17082038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meritmut/pseuds/meritmut
Summary: Ben hesitates, and Rey knows what she’s going to say but it breaks her anyway to hear the quiet, resigned sadness in her voice.“Would it be so bad, if someone knew?”





	in my lover's eyes (flowers grow)

**Author's Note:**

> twisted body parts moving synchronised  
> watching lightning strike in my lover's eyes  
> all the flowers grow to a luscious field  
> all connecting love becomes a human shield  
> — aurora, 'gentle earthquakes'

**

“How long do we have?”

“Not long enough.” Ben’s voice is rough with sleep. She is not long awake, although Rey would put money on her having spent a few minutes sneaking looks across the bed, gazing at Rey while she wasn’t conscious to complain about it. Ben’s eyes are closed now, and stay closed as she uses her grip on Rey’s waist to tug her nearer, drawing her in until their bodies collide beneath the sheets. Their legs tangling together, Ben’s strong arms around Rey’s back and her broad hands splayed across her spine, the message is clear.

_You’re not going anywhere._

Not that she would, Rey thinks, burrowing deeper into the heat of Ben’s body. This is the safest she’s ever felt lying in a bed that isn’t her own, enveloped in her lover’s arms. Ben’s head rests in the hollow of her throat, nosing at her jaw, and they’ll both have to get up eventually but until then—

“Shame,” she says into Ben’s shoulder, resisting the urge to nibble on the thick muscle. “I could stay here forever.”

“You could, if Tico knew how to knock.”

“Isn’t your door locked?”

“She knows the code.”

“Oh, really?” Rey leans back a little, just far enough that Ben can see her eyes crinkling as she grins.  “And just what are you two getting up to when I’m not here?”

Ben’s dark eyes roll toward the ceiling. “Her barging in to kick me out of bed around noon, usually.”

Rey snickers. Affection fills her: she dips down to drop a kiss on the tip of Ben’s nose before settling back into her arms. “That should be my job, if only so I can kick you back into it.”

“I’ll be sure to let her know.” Ben’s hands draw lazy shapes over her bare back, her fingers marking trails of fire across Rey’s skin until she feels like she’s about to burst into flames. Ben’s mouth finds the pulse point in her neck and breathes hotly against it, her tongue flicking out to tease that sensitive skin until Rey is whimpering and shaking in her arms, her heart racing and her head swimming with desire.

“Or,” Ben says, and there’s no way she isn’t trying to suck a lovebite into the side of Rey’s neck but it feels so _good_ that Rey can’t remember why exactly she should mind. “You could stay, and tell her yourself.”

_Oh. That’s why._

She feels herself go rigid—which means that Ben feels it too. She sighs into Rey’s shoulder, flattening her hands on her back as if to keep her there in bed.

“Don’t go yet,” she mumbles. The faint note of plea in her voice drives a splinter through Rey’s heart and she wraps herself further around Ben, pressing her face into her thick dark hair like she could hide there.

“I won’t,” she says. The arms around her tighten but it doesn’t matter—if Ben won’t let her go then she doesn’t have to get up, doesn’t have to leave the bed or the apartment and it won’t be her fault if someone comes in and catches them—“I don’t want to.”

“You don’t have to. But…” Ben hesitates, and Rey knows what she’s going to say but it breaks her anyway to hear the quiet, resigned sadness in her voice. “Would it be so bad, if someone knew?”

“I— _no_ —” The sound that escapes her is nearly a _sob._ Rey works her fingers into Ben’s hair so she can scrape her blunt nails over her scalp, kissing the place below her ear as the fracture in her heart widens. “Of _course_ not. Baby, that’s not why—”

“I know.” The pressure of Ben’s embrace is near suffocating now but she doesn’t care, she wants these arms to hold her forever. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Rey pushes back so she can see Ben, her eyes searching her face in bewilderment. “I’m the one making you keep secrets.”

Ben smiles sadly. “I have a hundred secrets,” she says, one hand coming up to cradle Rey’s cheek. “You’re the only one I don’t mind keeping.”

Rey tilts her face into Ben’s palm and kisses her there. “Liar.” Ben hates keeping them a secret. She wants everyone to know—she wants to tell the entire _galaxy_ about them, to waltz onto the senate floor with Rey on her arm and announce the truth of them to the world. And Rey—Rey wants it too.

But it would be the end of them.

“I mean it,” says Ben, “I’d keep it forever, if it means I get to keep you.”

It’s too much. Rey chokes back a sob, but Ben is looking right at her—she can’t hide the way her lip wobbles, her eyes brimming over with tears because this is _too much,_ this much love and devotion given freely is more than she ever thought would be hers but it _is_ and she has no idea what to do with it.

“Rey—no, Rey, please don’t cry—” Ben rises up onto her elbow so she can cover Rey with her body, her thumb rubbing away the tears that flow freely now. She leans down to rest her forehead against Rey’s and for a moment they hold each other, breathing the other in. “Sweetheart...”

Rey squeezes her eyes shut, fighting to get herself under control but now she can hear the hitch in Ben’s breathing and the way her broad shoulders tremble as she too fights to keep from weeping.

Minutes pass, or maybe it is hours, Rey half-expecting to hear a knock at the door long before she eventually extricates herself a little from the tangle of limbs they’ve fallen into. She brings both hands up to grasp Ben’s, kissing her knuckles so she doesn’t have to look up into Ben’s face.

It’s no use. Ben has always been able to pull her truths from her, even when Rey fought it tooth and nail.

“Hey,” she says, ducking her head to catch Rey’s eye. “Rey?”

“Hmm?” Rey sniffs, wiping her nose on the back of her hand before flopping onto her back. Ben’s hand comes to rest on her stomach, thumb moving lightly over a silvery patch of scar tissue near her navel. She shuffles close again and slips one heavy leg over Rey’s, resting her chin on Rey’s shoulder as she enfolds her in her arms again.

“I love you,” she says quietly. “And I would never let anything happen to you. I promise.”

Rey hadn’t thought her heart could hurt _more_. “I know,” she whispers, clutching Ben’s hand and bringing it up to her chest. She stares up at the ceiling, blinking away the onslaught of fresh tears. “I know you wouldn’t.”

Ben would cut the heart out of anyone who tried to harm her. Rey has witnessed it firsthand: that she is the bodyguard in this relationship has never mattered to Ben—who needs only the thinnest of excuses to go charging headfirst into a fray—and on the one occasion things had gotten so hairy Rey honestly began to wonder if they’d make it out, Ben had been beside her.

It had been exhilarating to watch her burn a bloody streak through the room, and imagine that any of that lethal ferocity was focussed on her.

To hear Ben promise the same now just makes her want to curl into a ball and cry.

She knows all the reasons. She can list them off without pausing for breath, does it whenever Ben gets that intense look in her eyes and demands _why shouldn’t they know? Why do we have to hide that I’m yours?_

_Because I’d be reassigned, if not expelled outright. Because the scandal would damage your reputation and by extension your mother’s, and there’d probably be some kind of inquiry that would drag both of our names through the dirt._

She doesn’t give a damn about her own name. She knows her name: she is Rey, and no one can take that from her even if they cast her out of the Order—even if they take everything else she has.

She won’t jeopardise Ben’s career with her own selfishness.

Stroking the pads of her fingertips over the back of Ben’s pale hand, Rey turns her heard and nuzzles her nose into Ben’s hair. The Force weaves sleepy, contented threads around them, filling her with the wordless sense of _good_ and _right_ and _how things are meant to be_.

“I love you, too,” she murmurs.

Ben’s heart thuds against her arm. “That’s all that matters.”

“One day,” Rey says, even though she doesn’t know how it can be possible; if there even is a _one day_ to speak of when there can be no future in what they’re doing, and now she’s crying again but it doesn’t matter because Ben’s lips are on hers and has there ever been anything sweeter than those lips, forever flushed red and so, so _soft?_ “We’ll make it work, I swear. I’ll make you so happy—”

“You already do,” Ben kisses her back with a feverish urgency. “Rey—I didn’t know what _happy_ meant until you.”

Her arms wind around Rey’s back again and she tries to drag her into a crushing embrace but Rey is already moving, using her weight and her grip on Ben’s shoulder to flip them over so she’s straddling Ben’s abdomen. She plants her hands to either side of Ben’s head, careful to avoid the spilled ink of her hair spread over the pillows.

Ben stares up at her with blazing dark eyes and oh—if someone came in and found them now Rey wouldn’t even look up.

Her whole body afire, Rey ducks down to capture Ben’s mouth in a kiss and exhale some of the flames into her. Ben reacts like she’s been shocked, grasping Rey by the hips and meeting her kiss with such starved ardour that Rey never wants to leave this moment, this inescapable knowledge of what it is to be _wanted_ —she would doubt it, even now, if she couldn’t feel it surging over the bond like silver light, blazing in her blood and burning away the fear that has followed her all her life; the fear that since her own parents couldn’t find it in themselves to keep her she must be unlovable.

Ben loves her, wholly, completely. Ben wants to keep her.

She chases that feeling, shuffling herself backwards until she’s resting squarely over Ben’s groin.

 _“Want,”_ she gets out between kisses, nibbling on Ben’s lower lip. Ben lets loose a groan that rumbles through her chest, her massive hands squeezing Rey’s hips as she bends her knees to give herself more leverage. One hand slides around to press her thumb into the crease of Rey’s thigh, strumming over the sensitive stretch of skin between her leg and her pelvis until she’s shaking and sighing into Ben’s smiling mouth.

Kriffing _tease_.

“Ben,” she breathes, rocking her hips pointedly.

“Mmhm,” Ben turns her attentions to the exposed length of Rey’s neck, kissing her way along the tendon before she sinks her teeth into the muscle there. Rey _whines,_ hooking one hand into Ben’s hair and giving a warning _tug._

 _“Touch_ me,” she hisses.

“I am.” Ben is still grinning, the smug bastard, so Rey takes matters into her own hands and uses them to support her weight, hoisting a leg up and over till she’s sitting astride Ben’s thigh. There, it’s just a case of chasing the friction she craves, rolling her hips and biting back a whimper at the hot flare of pleasure in her lower belly.

Ben catches one of Rey’s hands in her own, lifting it to her lips and pressing a kiss to the pad under her thumb. Her smile is softer, now.

“Want,” she echoes.

Rey bites her lip, giving another teasing little shimmy that nudges her thigh between Ben’s and makes her rosy lips part on a gasp. Freeing her hand, Rey takes a gentle hold of Ben’s wrists, pinning them to the pillow where her own had been as she leans down to rub their noses together.

“What do you want?” she murmurs.

A low growl reverberates through Ben. “You,” she says, rocking pointedly up into Rey, who lets a slow smile curve across her face.

“I thought you said we didn’t have long?”

“I don’t _care.”_ Ben pushes up against Rey’s grip on her wrists. She could free herself without breaking a sweat, of course, but that’s not the point.

The point is she doesn’t ever want to.

“Well...” Rey leans down again until she’s nearly flat across Ben’s torso, taking her mouth in a lazy kiss that quickly turns so achingly _sweet_ it sets butterflies loose inside her. She keeps their foreheads together again, just breathing in the scent of Ben’s skin and the surrounding, all-consuming heat of her. She can feel Ben’s heart thundering in her ribs: she can see herself reflected in Ben’s dark, dark eyes.

“Let’s hope Tico learns how to knock.”

**


End file.
